The Arras Memorial
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At the census of 1901, James was living at 25 Dixon St and had been
born in Skelton.
His father, who worked in the Ironstone mines, came from Hutton Le
Hole, N Yorks and his mother
from Skelton.
His brother William, aged 7 at that time, was to be killed in the war
on the 16th August 1917 in the fighting around
Ypres and is remembered on the Tyne Cot Memorial.
He had another brother, Frances 3, and five sisters - Jane 13, Annie
11, Ada 9, Mary 5 and Lena 1.
8th (Service) Battalion (1st County)
Formed in County of Durham on 10 September 1914, by Col. R.Burdon and a
committee.
May 1915 : attached to 93rd Brigade, 31st Division.
The Division fought in the Arras offensive in 1917.
This campaign was one of the most important in which the BEF was
engaged, yet in comparison with the Somme of 1916 and Passchendaele of
1917, terribly neglected by historians.
The British Army launched a large-scale attack at Arras as part of a
master plan by new French Commander
in Chief Robert Nivelle.
Although initially successful, it soon bogged down and became a
terribly costly affair.
The British attack was against the formidable Hindenburg Line, to which
the enemy had recently made a strategic withdrawal.
The battle can be considered to be composed of a number of phases: the
Battle of Vimy and the First Battle of the Scarpe (a river in the area)
were the opening phases
The Second and Third Battle of the Scarpe and the final Battle of
Bullecourt and other actions against the Hindenburg Line concluded the
fighting.
James Harding lost his life during the Third Battle of the Scarpe.
The Arras Memorial is in the Faubourg-d'Amiens Cemetery, which is
in the Boulevard du General de Gaulle in the western part of the town
of Arras. The cemetery is near the Citadel, approximately 2 kilometres
due west of the railway station.
The Memorial commemorates almost 35,000 servicemen from the United
Kingdom, South Africa and New Zealand
who died in the Arras sector between the spring of 1916 and 7 August
1918 and have no known grave.
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